Northern Lights!

Northern Lights over our lab on the Alaskan Arctic tundra (Photo credit: Jun Liu)

Wintertime sea spray aerosol!

Waves crashing at the snow-covered shore at Utqiagvik, AK - wintertime Arctic sea spray aerosol! Fall sea ice freeze-up is severely delayed in recent years, leading to storms eroding the coastline. A local noted sadly that the beach where she had played as a child had been washed away in recent years.

Aurora Borealis!

Beautiful Aurora Borealis in Utqiagvik, AK! A great reward for Pratt Lab post-doc and PhD student after a long day of Arctic fieldwork!

Mass Spectrometry in the Arctic!

Pratt Lab postdoc Jun Liu & PhD student Jamy Lee have been working hard to get our #MassSpec ready for Arctic aerosol sampling on the tundra!

Sunrise on the Arctic tundra!

The start of our Alaskan aerosol field campaign!

The Pratt Lab has started our Department of Energy Early Career & ARM field campaign APUN (Aerosols during the Polar Utqiaġvik Night; apun means 'snow on ground' in Iñupiaq)! Significant delays in fall sea ice freeze-up in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas are reducing winter sea ice extent and resulting in thinning sea ice prone to fracturing. However, the majority of recent Arctic aerosol observations have been made through intensive spring/summer field campaigns, with few measurements in the fall-winter. This observational gap is limiting our understanding of the spatial and temporal variability in the Arctic aerosol population, as recognized by current international efforts focused on improving understanding and prediction of the Polar Regions (e.g., Year of Polar Prediction, International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Project activity CATCH (Cryosphere and Atmospheric Chemistry)). The APUN field campaign will improve our understanding of atmospheric aerosol sources, composition, and processes during the early Polar night. Pratt Lab PhD student Jamy Lee and post-doc Jun Liu are working hard to get our instruments ready to start sampling on the Arctic tundra!